In the clarity of hindsight, I perceive I didn't find Nunn Mountain as much as
I succumbed to its charms:
Quiet, verdant whispers slip through, borne in the soft breezes of late summer,
Shadows are suspended from the bright needles of Loblolly Pines.
By dawn and by dusk, the deer amble along the forest edge, fuzzy ears alert,
rotating towards sounds like a battery of radar dishes.
A red fox creeps among the rocks on silent paws, intent on a squirrel who darts
up a Sweetgum, scolding.
A rabbit browses under my window, munching clover safe among a network of
bushes, tunnels, warrens, and escape routes only she sees. Her bunny, at first
no bigger than a single handful of fur, is grown by the time the first Sycamore
leaves yellow and tumble earthward.
I'm fondest of morning light, sneaking among the treetops and reaching my
newly-opened eyes -- mornings are green at first, a thousand shades of the
world's most complex color. Later in the year the greens wash out to yellow,
then brown. Soon green will return. After so many ears in the deserts of our
own making, it all seems like a gift I hadn't dared desire.
The walks across this sylvan landscape become my reward, breathing in pine and
hemlock, maple and sweetgum. Around my legs it's a cacophony of yellows:
Camphorweed, Beggarstick, Crownbeard, Goldenrod. I've barely begun learning
their names. I arrived too late in the year for the Bull Thistle, but a new
year is being raised: I just need to be
patient.
That is the lesson, of course, if I'm capable of learning it: slow the breath,
look up, watch the shadows drifting under my feet. It's evening now: the
opposum emerges and the night air carries the exclamations of a Barred Owl.
Time for this hurried soul to rest, this breath to steady, this pulse to slow.
Tomorrow may yet come. Meanwhile, am I.
